


The Doctor's Search History

by Doctorinblue



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Angst, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-02
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:21:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26757178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Doctorinblue/pseuds/Doctorinblue
Summary: A series of shortish fics about the Doctor's search history
Relationships: Twelfth Doctor/Clara Oswin Oswald
Kudos: 12





	The Doctor's Search History

Why do humans hug?

No. Not humans. Clara. Why does she still reach to wrap him into a hug? Why does she still expect him to slip his hand into hers when they're not even running from danger?

He exhales a breath of air that he's been holding long enough it feels stagnant and taps the glasses into life. They're new, still untested and unexplored, and a simple intergalactic web search might be exactly the thing needed to spot any faults in the design.

Why does _she_ hug me?

He scrolls through pages and pages, most of which humans have kindly offered back into the universe all by themselves. Always been a touchy bunch, some things never seemed to change. It's no good though in the end. There is nothing in any amount of searches that can completely expose what he feels when it comes to Clara. He can't find an article that covers what he's lost and she hasn't. There's not a single result that can explain away how his stomach knots up when she looks at him with her big sad eyes when he pulls away from her human-hot touch too sharply or breaks his fingers free from her grasp to point at anything else, no matter how mundane.

Nothing, in the entire galaxy, can be used to justify the way that her presence causes his hearts to lodge into his too narrow throat and choke away his air with confusion and a longing for something he no longer has a word to describe.

He used to understand it, and that's the bit that always enrages him if he lets himself linger on it too long. For lifetimes, he wanted to burn where they touched, to ache with a pain that soothed, reminded him he was alive until their touched faded - as it always did in the end. He's forgotten it all now, lost it when he gained this brand new old body and he's not entirely sure why he ever reached for them in the first place, why he branded them across his hearts, held his breath as they held him together.

There has to be something, there has to be a reason. But he can't find it any more than he can save Clara from himself, from this change that she didn't consent to - and damn him for just expecting them to always understand.

And yet, she understood. She stayed, and he repaid her by forgetting everything that made them them. He still cares about her naturally, has a duty of care that reminds him to make sure she eats, or to pull her free from danger a few seconds before it’s too late…but it’s not enough. Not for her, not for what they had even a body ago. He must have loved her, he reasons. Only love is a hollow word now, he can watch it dip in and out of the pools of his thoughts, but it’s never heavy enough to sink past his newly acquired logic. 

Maybe none of that matters. 

He's not even sure he's going to keep her in the end.

How do I let her go? He adds to his search history.


End file.
